The Long Game 70: Free Time & Happiness, Health Optimization, Dopamine, Optionality
The Long Game 70: Free Time & Happiness, Health Optimization, Dopamine, Optionality📈 Inevitable Trends that Will Shape the Future, Eating disorders, Zen, Supplement Reviews, China, Anxiety and Much More!Hi there, it’s Mehdi Yacoubi, co-founder at Vital, and this is The Long Game Newsletter. To receive it in your inbox each week, subscribe here: 📣 We are hiring at Vital, help us build the “Strava for Health.” We are currently looking for:
We are offering $1,000 in Bitcoin if you refer to us a candidate we end up hiring. In this episode, we explore:
Let’s dive in! 🥑 HealthHealth Optimization⚕️I just wrote a small piece about health optimization in the newsletter of my friend Ivan. Check it out, and subscribe to his newsletter! New Startup Riders is out!
The health optimisation landscape is pretty awesome...
@Mehdiyac takes us down this epic rabbit hole.
RT if you enjoy it! 🙏
P.s. if you want to participate in our next social fitness experiment give us a shout
startupriders.io/p/health-optim… 🌱 Wellness⏱ Having Too Little or Too Much Time Is Linked to Lower Subjective Well-BeingI came across this research paper recently, and I found it very interesting and worth sharing. Here’s the abstract:
The data seems to indicate that life satisfaction in the U.S. peaks at ~2-5hrs of free time per day. Although interesting, it’s also worth mentioning this:
While we’re talking about happiness, this is another thought-provoking paper explaining that an increase in income doesn’t lead to a lasting increase in happiness:
Finally, here’s the monetary value of some things you might already have: How much are our social lives worth for our well-being? 💰
-Seeing a friend regularly=$100,000
-Being married=$100,000
-Seeing your neighbor regularly=$60,000
-Being in good physical health=$400,000
From “Social” by Matthew Lieberman 🧠 Better Thinking➕ The Molecule of MoreI started listening to The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity―and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race by Daniel Z. Lieberman. The number of things that are controlled and impacted by dopamine is astounding. Next week, I will cover the book more, but the important first point is that dopamine is the molecule of possibilities. Dopamine doesn’t really care about tasty food; it doesn’t really care about anything predictable. Instead, dopamine gets released when we encounter things that are new, unexpected, and exciting. The bigger and better the surprise, the more dopamine our brain releases — and the more pleasure we feel. The high is the greatest when we make a reward prediction error — in other words, when we encounter a better outcome than what we expected. I’ll detail more ideas and key concepts from the book in next week’s episode. ⚡️ Startup Stuff📈 Inevitable Trends that Will Shape the FutureI read The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future by Kevin Kelly over the weekend. It outlines some important ideas to keep in mind while choosing an idea or building your company. Here are a few notes on the book:
We're proud of what we've achieved with Ray-Ban Stories and what we integrated into the most iconic glasses design in the world. Together with EssilorLuxottica, we focused on the design and only after that added the technology we believed would be most useful to people. 📚 What I Read⛔ Against OptionalityModern society is addicted to optionality. It’s a big problem:
💬 Zhang Yiming’s Last SpeechA philosophical last speech from former ByteDance CEO Zhang Yiming:
To pair with his video: How China Lost Patience with Its Loudest Billionaire. 🌋 The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and WhyThe crisis we're currently going through made me obsessed with the normalcy bias. It's a cognitive bias that leads people to disbelieve or minimize threat warnings. Individuals underestimate the likelihood of a disaster and its potential adverse effects when it might affect them. There are multiple examples in world history:
The danger of this bias can't be overstated. On this 9/11 week, I re-read parts of The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why by Amanda Ripley.
🎙 Podcast Episodes of the WeekA lot of great episodes this week:
🍭 Brain Food🧬 Can Progressives be Convinced that Genetics Matters?If you’re interested in the ‘nature vs. nurture’ eternal debate, you’ll find this long-form piece very interesting.
To caricature things, the debate has become highly politicized, and on the left, genes have no impact, while on the far right, genes explain everything and can easily fall into eugenics. Of course, the truth is more complicated and most likely falls in the middle.
For more, watch Three Identical Strangers on Netflix. 🎥 What I’m Watching🇨🇳 How China Became the World’s FactoryAn excellent video version of How Asia Works focused on China. To pair with this conversation on Chinese growth miracles. ❓ How I Overcame Anxiety and GuiltJustin Kan has a great Youtube channel. Check it out! What if I told you that I felt like a failure even after selling Twitch for a billion dollars?
This is for anyone experiencing impostor syndrome: 🔧 The Tool of the Week💊 Labdoor — Supplement Ratings & ReviewsIf you are interested in health and longevity, you will most likely experiment with supplements at some point. However, finding the right brands with the right ingredients is not an easy task. Labdoor makes this easier with ratings and reviews of commonly consumed supplements to help you make better choices. 🪐 Quote I'm Pondering
If you enjoyed this newsletter, make sure to subscribe if you haven’t 👇 👋 EndNoteThanks for reading! If you like The Long Game, please share it on social media or forward this email to someone who might enjoy it. Podcast reviews are also gratefully received. You can also “like” this newsletter by clicking the heart just below this, which helps me get visibility on Substack. Feel free to email me or find me on Twitter if you have any feedback or questions. Until next week, Mehdi Yacoubi PS: Lots of newsletters get stuck in Gmail’s Promotions tab. If you find it in there, please help train the algorithm by dragging it to Primary. It makes a big difference. If you liked this post from The Long Game by Mehdi Yacoubi, why not share it? |
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The Long Game 69: Altos Labs, Chemical Hunger, Obsessive Walking & Great Thinking, Próspera
Monday, September 6, 2021
📱 Social 3.0, Web3 Resources, Chinese Debt Crisis, Epistemic Wellbeing, the Metaverse, and Much More!
The Long Game 68: Zone 2 Training, the Efficiency Trap, Mimetic Desire, Optimism, Tote Bags
Monday, August 30, 2021
🥛 Whole Milk, Maybe, the Streetlight Effect, How Afghanistan Became a Failed State, Anti-Doping, and Much More!
The Long Game 67: Vital, Smartphones & Wellbeing, Seeing the Future, Remote Work
Monday, August 23, 2021
🌐 The Metaverse, Climate Change, Time Dilation, Afghanistan, Parasocial Relationships, Reveri, and Much More!
The Long Game 66: Feeling Great, Sacrifice, Cold Emails, How Asia Works
Monday, August 16, 2021
⏳ Every Hour Matters, Afghanistan, Geothermal Energy, Quantum Gravity, Russia, Khodorkovsky, Saturn, and Much More!
The Long Game 65: Polygenic Embryo Screening, Cognitive Improvement, The Measure & Improve Paradox
Monday, August 9, 2021
🌒 Seeing on the Far Side of the Moon, The Dissident, North Korea, Earth's Most Wanted Hacker, and Much More!
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